The man froze for a moment, took the item, and stood there staring at Ning Yi'an.
"Please pay," Ning Yi'an snapped out of her pleasant daydream, realizing she had accidentally made a mistake.
The man suddenly grinned, his smile stretching ear to ear.
"Meat..." He abruptly reached out and grabbed Ning Yi'an's arm.
Ning Yi'an was terrified. She now understood her mistake—the rulebook clearly stated, "Do not hand goods to customers before payment." But her instincts had momentarily overridden her memory of the rule.
"Help, save me!" Ning Yi'an turned to look at the senior employee, who cursed under his breath as he approached.
"Rule-breakers deserve death." Despite his grumbling, he pulled out a knife and slashed down, severing the customer's hand. The detached hand still clung tightly to Ning Yi'an's arm, leaving her face ghostly pale.
"Pay up..." Before the senior employee could finish, the door in front of them slammed shut with a loud "Bang!"
Panicked, he raised the knife and began knocking, then pounding on the door. Yet, the flimsy wooden door might as well have been forged from eternal ice—it remained completely unharmed.
Ning Yi'an stood dumbfounded, watching everything unfold. The senior employee suddenly stopped and glanced back at her, his eyes filled with resentment.
According to the boss's rules, failing to collect payment meant a wage deduction! A wage deduction!
The other players had encountered minor issues too, but they had mostly completed their tasks. The only ones who failed were Ning Yi'an and another player from the K Kingdom—a brainless black man named Hanks. The customer he served was so horrifying that Hanks simply threw the goods in their face, naturally receiving no payment. The customer even threatened to file a complaint.
In the K Kingdom's livestream, domestic viewers fell silent while international audiences burst into laughter.
"Look at our country's participants—they follow the rules without question. Now look at the K Kingdom."
"Truly the self-proclaimed world's greatest nation, even their mistakes are uniquely creative."
"That woman still thinks she can cozy up to Fang Zhiyi, huh?"
"Hahaha, hopeless. Absolutely hopeless."
The K Kingdom's higher-ups were livid. Despite paying protection fees and putting on a polite front, these two had still messed up! They even suspected Fang Zhiyi had conspired with the supernatural entities to set them up.
Fortunately, when Fang Zhiyi learned of the incident that evening, he didn’t press the matter. He simply informed the two supernatural couriers assigned to train the newcomers that the losses would be deducted from the two interns' wages.
"But boss, don’t they have no wages?" the store manager asked.
Fang Zhiyi shot him a sidelong glance. "So what if they don’t? Can’t they work extra to make up for it?"
"Oh~!" The supernatural employees had an epiphany.
And so, in the days that followed, Ning Yi'an and the dim-witted Hanks endured far more torment than the others. Players from other kingdoms, once they grasped the rules, resigned themselves to being workhorses. Compared to losing their lives, being exploited wasn’t so bad—some had been exploited even before being chosen for this game. The only difference was the location.
Ning Yi'an and Hanks, however, were paired together. They were assigned the longest delivery routes—any distance deemed too far by others fell to them. And due to their poor performance, their rations were reduced. While other players occasionally enjoyed instant noodles with meat, the two were stuck with plain boiled noodles.
Finally, Hanks snapped. He stood up abruptly and flipped the small table in front of him. "NO! I am a noble lord! How dare you treat me like this? Aren’t you afraid of offending the K Kingdom?" Before becoming a player, he had been a lowly thug who lucked his way through one game. The K Kingdom then "protected" him—meaning they provided shelter, food, and women. For a man who thought only with his lower half, this was paradise. The K Kingdom officials found him easy to maintain, so they kept him around.
But today, he couldn’t take it anymore. How dare these people treat him like this? The aroma of instant noodles from others' meals pushed him over the edge. He lunged to snatch a bowl.
Cheng Xiang instinctively glanced at Fang Zhiyi, who was reviewing accounts with the store manager. Fang Zhiyi merely narrowed his eyes at Hanks before resuming his conversation.
Cheng Xiang understood—he had fully grasped Fang Zhiyi’s character by now.
So he hugged his noodles and stepped aside.
Hanks tussled with the others, knocking over several bowls before finally seizing one. He didn’t notice the owner was from the X Kingdom, a nation long at odds with the K Kingdom. The moment he looked up, a fist the size of a sandbag smashed into his face.
"Damn it! You dare steal from me? Are the rest of you dead? Just letting this trash run wild?"
Once someone struck the first blow, others joined in. These players, though slightly better off than the K Kingdom duo, had been simmering with resentment from endless drudgery. And now a black brute had the audacity to intimidate them? Knowing billions were watching, some cursed and dove into the fray.
Ning Yi'an was petrified. She rushed toward Fang Zhiyi.
"Zhiyi, do something! Hanks is going to get beaten to death!" She stared at Fang Zhiyi, who was flipping through the ledger, her mind racing with calculations.
"Mm." Fang Zhiyi didn’t even look up. His indifference reassured the other players, who focused wholeheartedly on pummeling Hanks. This guy had always lorded his K Kingdom status over them, hurling insults and even harassing female players in private.
"Protest! The Xia Kingdom isn’t instructing Fang Zhiyi to stop them?"
"Protest my ass."
"You paid protection fees for Fang Zhiyi to shield you from supernatural threats, not to mediate player brawls."
"Oh? Fair point."
"Damn, I think we just found a loophole."
"Shh."
Ning Yi'an anxiously watched as Hanks disappeared under the mob, then turned back to Fang Zhiyi. "Zhiyi..."
Before she could speak, Fang Zhiyi abruptly closed the ledger and looked over. "Alright, that’s enough." He wouldn’t let Hanks die—at least not here.
The enraged players didn’t hear him, but the supernatural staff did. They rushed forward, slapping players aside one by one to break up the fight.
Fang Zhiyi walked over to Hanks, who was barely conscious. The man was surprisingly tough—beaten to a pulp yet still hanging on.
"Not dead yet?"
Hanks' eyes were slits as he weakly nodded, mumbling incoherently.
"Old Crook!" A supernatural employee with a crooked neck scurried over. "Boss."
"Keep an eye on him this afternoon. If he’s alive, he works." With that, Fang Zhiyi turned and left.
The room fell silent.
Cheng Xiang could already imagine the flood of online comments—Fang Zhiyi’s reputation would now include "tyrannical capitalist."
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
+ Slow Paced + Main Character Thrives Together with His Disciples】 Transmigrated into a cultivation world, Chu Xingchen awakens a discipleship system that reveals the tags of his disciples! Starting from scratch, he builds the strongest sect. Disciple One: Li Yingling 【Gold Tag: Genius Cultivator】【Purple Tag: Extremely Lucky】【Blue Tag: Bewitchingly Beautiful】 Disciple Two: Li Hangtian 【Gold Tag: Reincarnated】【Purple Tag: Ruthless and Decisive】【Blue Tag: Loyal and Noble】 Disciple Three: ??? 【Orange Tag: Alluring Demoness】【???】【???】 Thus, in the cultivation world, an unremarkable little sect appears out of nowhere, but little do others know that each member of this sect is a powerhouse in their own right. The book is also known as: Cultivation? It's Exactly Like This!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
